The Cosmos Keeps Messing With My Head
by purplebuttons0203
Summary: The Apple brings Desmond to a new world to save. Too bad he's about 100 percent done with self sacrifice. Just when he's about to die- again- a dragon shows up, and it all goes to hell. (It's gay, and it's just going to get gayer)(If you don't like it then just don't read, please)
1. Rebirth

As the world goes dark, Desmond only feels the pain of the Apple.

It feels like a thousand burning knives carving up his arm, tracing patterns like circuit boards into his flesh. Even as all of his other senses fall away and he is sure that he must be dead, he can still feel the cold metal clutched in his hand. It is an anchor in a black void, a point of reference in the endless plain of nonexistence. He is still clutching it when, seconds or maybe millennia later, he hears a sound not unlike the crack of a bullet being fired from a gun. Suddenly, there is painful light and overwhelming noise, and he collapses onto hard dry earth.

He doesn't know how long he lies there, gasping to fill his too-empty lungs with wonderful air, but it is long enough. Long enough for someone to find him, call out to him, touch him.

Try to take the Apple.

The second their hands reach for it, Desmond's fragile mind goes blank with unknowable anger and he is up, clawing at them until he gets it back, but he doesn't stop. He can't stop. There are more hands on him, subduing him, but thankfully they don't try to take the Apple again. Somebody shoves it into the pocket of his hoodie, and then something strikes his temple, hard. He blacks out, body going limp, and once again welcomes the darkness.

He wakes up in a cart.


	2. Escape

Desmond wakes up in a cart.

In an instant, he's taken stock of his surroundings. There's three other men with him, and a quick flash of his eagle vision says that none of them are hostile. The man sitting next to him has a gag in his mouth, and is vehemently glaring at nothing. They are dressed oddly, in tunics and cloaks that would not be out of place in a renaissance festival. All of them have ropes tied around their wrists.

In the next instant, he takes stock of himself. The Apple is still shoved in the pocket of his hoodie, which has the sleeves shoved up to his elbows, and on his right arm there are a myriad of scars not unlike a circuit board. His jeans are caked with dirt at the knees, and his sneakers are similarly dirty. His pack, thank god, is still slung over his back. His hidden blade is still there as well, strapped to his left wrist just like always, and its familiar weight brings him comfort.

The blond man across from him smiles widely. "Ahh, finally awake, I see." Desmond ignores him, instead going to town on his bindings. He grew up on escape training and espionage, and ordinary rope is child's play compared to zip ties. He's out of them in seconds.

He ignores the gasps and stutters of the two ungagged men in the cart, instead shifting his weight onto his toes and vaulting up and backwards out of the cart. He's off across the rough terrain, stumbling slightly as feeling works itself back into his legs.

He enjoys his freedom for all of about fifteen seconds before something strikes him in the back and he goes down. His head cracks on a rock and he blacks out- again.

He wakes up back in the cart.

They've got him in iron manacles this time, chained behind him to one of the wooden beams on the cart wall. His legs are unbound though, and he doesn't even grace the other prisoners with attention this time as he brings his foot up to his face and shimmies a lockpick out of his shoe with his teeth. He turns his head and arches his back, dropping it into his hands. They're unlocked in a minute, and in moments he's sprung out of the cart again. He lasts a little longer this time, making it almost home free, but he makes the fatal mistake of turning to look back and he goes down with an arrow in his shoulder.

He wakes up back in the cart.

In the seconds it takes everyone to notice he's awake, he's already on the move. He leans over, grasps the shaft of the arrow with his teeth, and with a pained grunt, rips it out. He shoves it in the keyhole of the cuffs and twists. It _definitely_ should not work, but it does, and the cuffs pop off. Instead of wasting time unlocking his feet he just yanks his ankles as hard as he can and the metal brackets they're chained to pull out of the wood.

He brains one guard with his cuffs and trips another with his ankle chains, who falls and accidentally impales himself. He's so close to freedom, he can practically taste it, when a third guard lights him up with 20,000 volts of purple lightning and he collapses, shaking so hard he knocks himself out.

He wakes up back in the cart. Call him crazy, but he's starting to notice a pattern.

This time, he makes no move to escape. His arms are twisted apart and bound to each opposite elbow, and his forearms are chained to the cart wall. He has shackles on his knees and his ankles, and his ankles are cuffed to the floor. He may be a good escape artist, but even he can't do anything in this situation.

The blond man across from him quirks an eyebrow. "What, no moves to escape this time, friend? We were sure you had something else up your sleeve."

Desmond glares and, for the first time, opens his mouth.

Instead of English, smooth Arabic rolls out of his mouth. He tries again, but this time it's Italian, with a little French mixed in. The third time yields Mohawk. He violently shakes his head and grunts when the voices in his mind settle. He smiles sheepishly at the three other men, who are wide eyed and staring by now.

"Sorry about that." He shakes his head again. "It's just- all the languages- my head gets them confused sometimes." He looks around, eagle vision flashing, but all the guards are a dull, inattentive red. "Who are you?"

The blond man grins understandingly. "It is no trouble, friend. I am Ralof, of Riverwood. Next to you is Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm and true high king of Skyrim." He nodded to the dark haired man. "I know not who this man is, save that he is a horse thief and he is from Rorikstead." The man- Ralof- cocked his head, peering at Desmond. "And what of you, friend? Who are you?"

Desmond is tempted to give him a fake name, he really is, but he figures- what the hell? He's tied up in a cart with what looked to be prisoners, in a country he's never heard of with people who don't know him. There probably isn't any way his real identity could come back and bite him in the ass. He knows how these things end.

#

 _"I'm Desmond, Desmond Miles."_

Ulfric Stormcloak is not a man taken to fits of rash action or flights of fancy. No one would dare tell you otherwise. He is nearly always level headed, the perfect picture of composure. It is an image he cultivates almost religiously, and he works as hard as he can to make sure that nobody- nobody but Galmar, that is- ever has a reason to think differently. ' _Nothing gets the better of Ulfric Stormcloak,_ ' the people whisper. ' _He is invincible. He is a man with the strongest of wills.'_

But _dear Divines_ , this _man_.

This stupid, rash, _courageous_ Desmond Miles, who has escaped three times and killed two Imperials bare handed and had almost, _almost_ made it to freedom. This enigmatic man who flows between unknown tongues like water and dresses so strangely and has scars like ancient carvings and eyes like polished septims.

Well, Ulfric challenges even the strongest of men to walk away from _that_.

He watches him out of the corner of his eye, sees him nod at all the right points and act like he's listening to Ralof. All the while his eyes flit around, taking in their surroundings and cataloging escape routes and guard positions, all instinctive. He watches the man shrink away from the guard at his back and pull his legs in to make himself a smaller target.

And it occurs to Ulfric that this is a man who has seen war. Not just seen it, but lived it, a man who has been hunted and bloodied and backed into a corner so many times that even when he is relatively safe he is constantly on edge. It's in the set of his jaw, the curve of his spine, the slope of his shoulder. He has seen it many times, the haunted look in the eyes of old veterans. What could this man, who is barely into adulthood, have experienced to make him look like he has never know peace?

Then they pass into Helgen, and Ulfric sees the block, and sees the way the strange man stills, and it clicks.

Strange, _beautiful_ Desmond Miles, who calms the shaking horse thief with soothing words even as he knows without a doubt that he is going to die. He is resigned to his fate, and, as they are loaded off the cart into the courtyard of Helgen, even when Tullius is monologuing and he should be paying attention, Ulfric _cannot stop watching him_. He watches Desmond relax at the sight of the block, sees him admit defeat.

He _burns_ at the thought of the loss of such _fight_ , such _fire_.

Ulfric isn't rash, no. But once something catches his attention, once he gets hooked on it, there is no standing in his way. He has always had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, a boundless desire to know things, to understand the world around him. People are no exception. And Desmond, Desmond is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a cloak of shadows. Ulfric yearns to speak to him, to listen and touch and learn this man, and they have never even spoken to one another.

He would kill every person in this town himself if it would keep this man alive long enough for Ulfric to _know_ him.

Ulfric Stormcloak is, by no means, a devout man, or a selfless one. He prays maybe once in a while, for strength and determination to win his war. He has never prayed for another. But as he watches Desmond shuffle forward and smile at the executioner like an old friend, he breaks into fervent prayer, hoping against hope that someone, _anyone_ , might hear.

 _Please,_ anyone _, by the Divines, let this man live. Let him_ live.

Then the dragon attacks, and Ulfric nearly cheers.


	3. Giant Black Death Lizards Ain't Much Fun

Desmond doesn't move for about thirty seconds.

He just stares at the dragon, because holy motherfucking shit on a stick that is a _dragon_. He looks down. Is he dreaming? He has to be dreaming, because dragons aren't real. They _aren't_.

Then Ralof, stubborn, wonderful Ralof, grabs him and tugs him away as fast as he can.

There's a lot of running, after that. It's surprisingly freeing, being able to just let go and sprint through the burning rubble, trailing behind Ralof and that Ulfric guy. He hadn't known he'd missed this. At one point Ralof is gone and he's following a man in leather armor instead, dodging dragon fire and freerunning across open ground. It looks like one of the soldiers that captured him, he thinks, while the man is screaming at others to get some kid out of the way. Then suddenly Ralof is back, and Desmond is so relieved to see a familiar face in such agonizing chaos that he doesn't even think before following him into the keep.

#

He collapses, panting, inside the stone building. His skin and jacket are singed, and if these shackles don't come off in a few moments he's going to scream.

Ralof hauls him to his feet. "A dragon, here and in the flesh! I never thought that those old legends had any truth to them." Then he's off to look around, leaving Desmond to try to catch his breath by the door. Sure, he's sprinted farther than that before, but never in such stressful circumstances. Now that the adrenaline's worn off, he's shaking like a leaf.

"Do you see a key to this door anywhere?" Desmond shakes his head. "Damn. If we want to-" Ralof abruptly cuts off, dragging Desmond to the side of the locked door. "Imperials! Hide!"

"Get this gate open!" Oh, he knows that voice. That's the lady who sent him to the block. If anyone had the key to his cuffs, it would be her.

He's just opening his mouth to tell this to Ralof when she spots them. "Prisoners!" She shrieks. "Attack!"

He and Ralof jump opposite directions. The two less armored guards follow Ralof, but the woman, the most dangerous, goes after him. Fuck.

It's no competition, really. She's heavily armed and he's in just his hoodie, with his arms cuffed behind his back. In mere moments she has him at her mercy, her chest pressed to his back and her sword at his throat. He can hear Ralof calling his name from where he's fighting off one of the guards, the other fallen at his feet.

"Any last words, criminal scum?" she hisses.

"Sorry about this," he murmurs. He twists his wrists and jabs his hands back into her stomach, hidden blade releasing. He jerks to the side and twists as her arms go slack in surprise, gashing a huge wound across her torso. He backs away quickly, out of sword range. She falls to the ground, blood burbling out of her mouth.

He does his best to shake the blood off of his blade and retracts it. Ralof is staring, wide eyed, at the dead soldier. Desmond whistles to get his attention.

"You mind searching her for a key to these cuffs? I'm a little tied up at the moment." As surprised as the other man is, he still chuckles at the bad joke.

"Of course, friend. One moment." His hands pat over her pockets, eventually pulling away, triumphant, with two keys. "Aha! One of these should open the gate, and the other your shackles. Now, let me see if I can get these bindings off." Desmond gratefully turns and presents him with his wrists, and in moments he is blessedly free. "There we go."

He works feeling back into his hands as Ralof moves to unlock the other gate. His sleeves had prevented a good amount of chafing, but the skin and muscles are still raw and sore.

He sees Ralof moving off down the stairs and makes to go after him. Almost as an afterthought, he grabs the woman's sword. It's not like she'll be needing it anymore.


	4. The Price of Freedom

The next room they happen upon is a torture room.

It's disgusting, frankly. There's blood splattered over every conceivable surface, dead people locked in iron cells, and an honest to god cage full of skulls suspended from the ceiling. If he wasn't so numbed to gore and the like he might have just hurled all over the floor. So hey, being dead inside did come with some perks. Who knew.

This is the first room they've come upon where a fight's already in progress. Two of Ralof's people(at least he figures they're together, they're wearing what seems to be the same uniform) are battling two more soldier-types, and an old man in robes and a cowl shooting purple lightning out of his hands. Desmond hangs back from the fight for a second and squints especially hard at the old man. He thought he saw- there.

A red bar appears in his top middle field of vision, and underneath is the word "Torturer" in little white letters. He sees the man get grazed by an arrow, and the red bar drops down a little. Dear god, it's a health bar. It's a goddamned health bar, and he can see it.

He's in a fucking video game _whatthefuck_ -

The revelation is forestalled a bit when the old man, the torturer, sets his sights and his magical purple lightning on Desmond. He does his best to dodge, but he's still just barely out of the entryway and he takes the brunt of the spell. Suddenly _he_ has a health bar, at the bottom of his vision, between a blue bar and a green one. Stamina and Magicka? They did match the respective potion colors.

He doesn't have long to ponder, as he takes another blast of lightning and sees his health bar drop dangerously low. He lurches forward, and in two short moves of his sword, flicks his blade across the man's throat. The Torturer collapses like a rag doll.

An accidental flick of his wrist has the world stopping. In the center of his vision is a four pointed compass type thing. The top point says skills, the left says magic, the right says items, and the bottom reads map. On a whim, he flicks his wrist to the right, towards items, which opens another menu. There's a drop down list of different categories. He flicks to potions and selects his last health potion.

It disappears from his inventory and he feels a tingly rush of sensation all over his body. It leaves a disgusting taste in his mouth, but his health bar jumps up significantly, so he'll grin and bear it. Two more flicks of his wrist closes the menu, and the world restarts again. Can he do that in the middle of a battle? That would be damned useful.

In the aftermath of the fight, Desmond gets introduced to Ralof's companions, a woman named Mika and a man named Hanjrr. He has no idea how they're in the keep,because the door was locked before them, but, as he eyes Mika's giant war axe, he's a little afraid to ask.

Ralof suddenly walks up and smacks some lockpicks into his hands. He points to one of the cages, which looks to hold a dead man wearing robes. "See if you can pick the lock, eh? There's gold in there we might need later." He gets the feeling Ralof isn't really asking, so he shrugs and drops to his knees in front of the lock. He gets it open a tad slow, about twelve seconds, and goes about collecting the gold and looting the cage. He misses the others speculative looks.

"Is that why you're here, then?" Hanjrr asks as Desmond stands, having collected about fifteen gold coins and a book with strange markings on the front. Hey, it said it was worth a good amount of gold. He'll take whatever he can get.

"Hmm?" he replies. His mind is only half on the conversation, too busy looting the Torturer. He startles minisculely as a menu pops up, but quickly gets the hang of the controls and goes about searching the , a steel dagger. Nice. He could use a set of knives, maybe he should see about getting some. More gold, too. He quits the menu and stands. He'll probably have a panic attack later when he's out of danger and has time to process what's going on, but for now he takes some slight comfort in his surroundings. This whole video game type setup is rather like the Animus.

Not especially comforting thought.

"You know," Hanjrr gestures to the cage, "why you're here. Was it thievery?" It takes Desmond a second to realize the huge man is asking why he got, for lack of a better term, arrested. When he does, he shakes his head.

"Ah, no. That- that's a really long story. One we don't have time for right now." He rifles through a knapsack on a table and comes away with a few more gold, an iron dagger, and a book about something called the "Dragonborn", whatever the fuck that was. The two dead soldiers bring about more gold and a dagger each. One of them has a bow and some arrows, and when he grabs them, one of the parts of him that isn't really him- Connor, probably- purrs with delight. Oh, these felt right. He closes the menu and stops short at the intense gazes the three are giving him.

"What did you do before, then?" Mika asks, squinting suspiciously at him. He side eyes her as he pushes past into the hallway.

"I killed people."

He proves it, too, in the next room. The four soldiers stationed around the bridges and platforms barely have time to cry out as he hurls his four daggers in a move that is purely Ezio. All but one of them finds their marks, and for him Desmond pulls out his newly acquired bow and launches an arrow straight into his face. They're dead in less than thirty seconds, health bars disappearing one by one.

He's not going to lie, the slack looks of disbelief on his companions faces makes him feel like a total badass.

He casually strolls through the room, looting gold and arrows and retrieving his daggers. He even takes and equips a set of light armor from one of the soldiers, although he doesn't take helmet because they look stupid. He can only put on one bracer as well, because his left arm holds his hidden blade.

He glances over his shoulder. Ralof has followed him, but Mika and Hanjrr have stayed by the door. "You guys coming?"

Mika shakes her head, a little frantically. "We will stay here and wait for Jarl Ulfric."

Desmond shrugs. "Mmkay then. Have fun!" He waves over his shoulder and strolls off into the tunnel. Ralof grins at them before he, too, disappears down the rocky corridor.

Mika shakes her head in fondness and dismay. Ralof always did seem to end up with the most dangerous sort. And that Desmond character…well. She looks around the room, at the fallen Imperials, and remembers their sudden and casually violent deaths. To be able to kill so quickly and effortlessly… The man had said he was a killer. She just wonders to what extent.

Desmond would be having the time of his life if he wasn't fighting giant spiders.

Seriously! They're straight out of his nightmares as a kid, nearly as large as he is, with mandibles as large as his forearm and beady black eyes.

He lets Ralof run ahead and take them head on. He stays back by the entrance and pumps them full of arrows. He takes out at least one by himself, which he's proud of.

"I hate these damned things," Ralof mutters, and Desmond agrees. Wholeheartedly.

He glances mournfully back through the tunnel, at the remains of the collapsed bridge. The dragon had just roared and it had shaken to pieces. He wasn't sure that was how the laws of physics were supposed to work, but meh. Video game logic.

He yanks a couple arrows back out of the spiders, kicks one for good measure, and follows after his blond companion. The passage collapses behind them as they move forward, and he has to yank Ralof out of the way so he doesn't get crushed. They stumble forward, coughing on dust.

"Thank, friend," Ralof hacks into his fist. "Without you, I would be dead a few times over!"

Desmond rolls his eyes and slaps him on the back until he can breathe again. "Don't mention it. And I do have a name, Ralof. It's Desmond. Use it, yeah?" Ralof grumbles good naturedly, but nods.

Desmond drops to the ground the second they enter the next cave, and he pulls Ralof down with him. He slaps a hand over the other man's mouth to cover a shriek of protest, and keeps it there until he's sure Ralof won't talk. He puts his finger to his lips in the universal symbol for quiet, and points to the rather large sleeping bear on the other side of the cave. Ralof's eyes light up with understanding.

"Follow me," he mouths silently, and Ralof nods.

He picks up another health potion from the old rotting cart as they slink by. Ralof's footsteps aren't nearly as silent as his, but the bear doesn't seem to notice anyhow. They make it to the other side of the cave without incident, and they both breathe wordless sighs of relief. That could have ended up terribly.

The little white text appears again as he slinks silently towards the literal light at the end of the tunnel.

 _* To Skyrim_

He hides his grin from Ralof as they step out into the near blinding sunlight.

He has never been so glad to see the sky.

#

Ulfric enters the keep only ten minutes later, but he does not see Desmond again. He sees the man's discarded chains, so he knows he made it in alive, and the captain is missing her sword. He does not manage to catch up to them in the keep.

What he does see is the carnage he has left behind. The Imperial captain, the soldiers, the torturer. There is blood fairly splattered across the walls in his wake. Not all of it could have been Desmond, of course, but it is an inordinate amount of violence for Ralof alone.

He is glad that Mika and Hanjrr both made it to safety. They are good soldiers and better people, and it would have been a shame had they not survived.

"My Jarl!" Mika salutes.

"Mika, Hanjrr," he nods to them. "Where are Ralof and Desmond? I did not see their bodies on the way in." He toes at one of the bodied, questioningly. They do not appear to have a single mark on them except for a deep gash in the throat, too wide to be an arrow wound.

"They went on ahead," Hanjrr says. He gestures to the bodies of the fallen soldiers, answering Ulfric's unspoken question. "Desmond… took care of them."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Really? By himself?"

Mika nods fervently. "Yes, Jarl. I have never seen anything like it! He grabbed four daggers from the fallen bodies in the other room. And when he came in here-"

"He hurled them! Right into their throats!" Ulfric's eyes widened. Throwing daggers? He had never heard of such a thing. Hanjrr continued, waving his arms. "He missed but one, and before we could react he took out a bow and shot the man right between the eyes, without hardly even looking!" He shook his head. "Even I can hardly believe it, and I saw it!"

Mika piped in, hesitantly, as they began to walk through the room and down the tunnel. "He did say he had killed people. But this… this was more than killing. It was graceful, and smooth, like a dance. Some of the more violence inclined might call it an art." They jumped across the gap where the bridge used to be, and skirted around the dead spiders. "He is much more than a murderous bandit or a violent sellsword, I am sure of it." She swore when they came upon the collapsed hallway. "How are we going to get through? We can't go back."

Ulfric gestured for them to move back. "Leave this to me."

He squared up to the wall and closed his eyes, reaching deep within himself. Power welled through his body, bubbling up to his throat. His eyes snapped open and he snarled.

 _"Fus Ro Dah!"_

The rocks shot backwards, as if blasted by a great explosion instead of a few words. He rubbed the pain away from his throat and nodded in satisfaction. Such was the power of the Thu'um.

They were not expecting the bear.


	5. Walking

As Desmond trips over yet another tree root, he can't help wish for a pair of hiking boots. His leather boots are a nice boost to his armor rating, but they aren't exactly built for trekking through forests. Maybe that's just him, actually. He's never been an outdoorsy kind of person, and living in places like New York City and the basement sanctuary of Monteriggioni has only exacerbated that. Skyrim, unfortunately, seems to be nothing but nature though. As he spits leaves out of his mouth, he tries to convince himself that he's loving the outdoors. He's totally fine with hiking in the goddamned mountains. Give him a stupid forest over a dragon any day.

Really.

He hikes down to the river with Ralof before the man, in all his infinite wisdom, decides to split up. Desmond flat out vetos that idea, going so far as to cuff the man on the back of the head to voice his displeasure. He's not going to leave the only person he knows and trusts a little in the entire fucking country, and he says so. Ralof looks sheepish, and a little bit touched. Desmond pretends he doesn't see.

The manly bonding moment is killed about a hundred feet later, with the discovery of the Guardian Stones.

"What are these?" he murmurs, gliding up to them in a trance. He brushes his finger over them one by one and they hum, light flickering over the carvings. Ralof looks disturbed. He takes it that isn't normal, then. "Who made them?" He doesn't really need to ask. He know First Civ technology when he sees it. And if he's right, Ralof's going to say-

"Nobody knows who made them. They've been around for as long as anyone can remember."

Yup, there it is. He steps closer to the one depicting a hooded man holding a knife. They all have a rather large hole in the center of them, he notes, as his hand unconsciously slips into his pocket and fingers the golden ball within. A hole just the right size for an Apple.

He pulls it out and, without thinking much about it, slides the Piece of Eden into the gap.

The whole platform lights up bright blueish white, and in a split second, Desmond is crouched on the ground with his hands cradled protectively over his head. He wasn't in Vidic's clutches for very long, but it was long enough to associate the color light blue and bright light with _pain_.

He uncrouches after a moment, when it becomes apparent that he isn't being harmed, and subtly glances over at Ralof. The man, however, is frozen. Not with shock or anything, literally just frozen in place, like a hyper-realistic statue. When he takes a second to examine his surroundings, he notices that there's no noise. At all. The river and the woods are totally silent. The trees and grass are unnaturally still. Time's been frozen, then.

Oh lord, that can't be good.

He turns back to the Apple, and notices that it's still slightly protruding, not quite in the center of the stone. He prods it a little more, and feels something click into place. The Apple starts to turn slowly, and then faster, glowing a bright, burning gold. He backs up quickly, expecting something to happen, but after a full minute all it does is begin to slow down, until it comes to a complete stop. It pops out of the standing stone with a faint hiss, and he has to lurch forward and fumble to keep it from dropping to the ground.

In the place where the Apple clicked into the pillar, right where it touched the bottom, is a tiny indent, the exact shape of the carving on the front face of the standing stone. It's little, about the size of the top half of his thumb. He steps back, away from the pillar, and starts when it beginst to rumble and sink into the ground. In a few seconds, there is nothing to indicate that the thing was ever there, except for the small etching on the Apple.

The platform, however, is still glowing bright blue, so Desmond repeats the process with the other two stones, which depict a warrior type guy and a man in tobes with a staff. A wizard, maybe? In the end, he stands on the glowing stone with three little pictures etched into the golden ball. He gazes helplessly at the now empty platform and, lacking anything else to do, steps off.

Time restarts, violently.

Ralof, who had been running to his aid, crashes into him, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Desmond smacks his head into the rough stone and almost loses his grip on the Apple. Thankfully, he manages to shove it into a pocket before he really does lose it.

"Owwww," he whines, sitting up and clutching the back of his head, tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. He gazes accusingly at Ralof, hurt, even though he knows it wasn't the man's fault. They just stare at each other for a minute, and then the other man can't scramble off of him fast enough, stammering apologies and helping him to his feet. He just shakes his head and stalks off down the road, answering all of Ralof's questions with a curt "I'll explain later," or a grunt.

Ralof trails along behind the mysterious man, Desmond, doing his best to keep himself from bombarding him with questions. What on earth had happened back there? He's never seen anything like that before, and he has just walked out of a fight with a dragon. What Desmond had done with the Guardian Stones, that was the stuff out of tales!

 _But then again_ , he thinks, _so are dragons. Maybe the things of tales are much more present than we thought._

#

If someone had asked Desmond to picture a small Scandinavian town in the mid to late sixteenth century, he would have pictured something close to Riverwood. Unfortunately, no one had ever asked Desmond to picture a small Scandinavian town in the mid to late sixteenth century, so he has absolutely no idea what to expect.

Gerder, Ralof's sister, is quite nice, if a little standoffish. She had graciously offered him a place to stay for the night, and he had accepted with no small amount of relief. He feels like he could sleep for a year after the day he's had, but he settles for a solid eighteen hours. Unfortunately, it only feels like a few seconds. According to the little menu, it's Fredas, the 22nd of Last Seed. Whenever the fuck that is.

 _* You awake feeling rested_

 _You're a goddamned liar,_ he thinks viciously. And it seems as if that's going to set the tone for the rest of the day, because he's unexplainably, though understandably, grumpy.

Gerder notices him as he climbs out of bed and stretches the kinks out of his back.

"You're awake, good. There's something I need you to do." Desmond quirks an eyebrow and gestures for her to go on. "If there really is a dragon on the loose, Riverwood is defenseless. I need you to head down the road to Whiterun and tell the Jarl the news so he can send troops to defend the town."

That sounds reasonable. "Sure. How do I get to Whiterun from here?"

"Head north out of the city and across the river, then over the ridge. You'll see it on the hill. You can't miss it."

"Alright. Thanks, for everything." He might be in a bad mood, be his mama raised him to be polite. She smiles kindly at him before shooing him out the door.

Riverwood is misty in the early evening light, and the cold sunlight drifts lazily through the banks of fog. It's quite peaceful, and goes a long way towards soothing his nerves. He takes a deep breath and heads off, shoes tapping softly on the stone of the road.

Thirty minutes later, he rather regrets not thinking about how much walking this was going to involve. He's far from winded, used to this kind of exercise as he is, but his legs are beginning to ache and his feet are already there. The rough, patchy stone roads of Skyrim are nothing like the smooth asphalt of his world. And there are so many damned rocks around he's always in danger of twisting an ankle. He almost prefers walking through the forest.

Not quite though.

Night is already falling by the time he gets to the farms on the surrounding the city. It's quite pretty, in a medieval sort of way. The giant crumbling walls are a little intimidating, but eh, what can you do?

The sounds of a fight bring him up short. A few hundred feet away, three people are hacking and slashing at a-

He squints. Is that a giant?

It roars and swings it's giant club at the three of them, narrowly missing the two men. The third, the woman, lets out a vicious battle cry and charges it head on, hacking and slashing like a machine. He watches a significant chunk of the Giant's health disappear, then shrugs and continues on towards the city. They don't need help at all, and he's on an errand, anyway.

But this is a fucking video game and nothing ever makes sense. They end up stopping him just outside of the stables.

"That Giant is dead, no thanks to you," says the woman, who's label names her Aela the Huntress.

And, just like that, his bad mood is back. "What the fuck did you expect me to do, shout at it until it died? I was like four hundred feet away, and it was clearly your fight. Step the fuck off, lady." He stalks around them, feeling their astonished gazes on his back.

About ten feet later, he feels a gloved hand on his arm, stalling his movements. He turns, and it's one of the nearly identical men. He doesn't say anything, just nods to the woman standing at his side. Desmond turns fully to face them and crosses his arms, shooting them poisonous glares. One of the men actually takes a step back.

"I… apologize," the woman, Aela, says. "That was rude of me. May we start over? I am Aela the Huntress. These are my shield brothers, Farkas, and his actual brother, Vilkas." She sticks out her hand, and actually looks apologetic, so Desmond counts to five in his head and lets out a quiet sigh before shaking it.

"Desmond Miles. I was pretty rude to you too, so I guess that makes us square. It's been a rough couple of days." His arm drops back to his side.

One of the men, Vilkas he thinks, nods his head. "That's understandable. Did you hear about the dragon attack at Helgen?"

Desmond barks out a short humorless laugh. "Buddy, I was in the dragon attack at Helgen." He smirks grimly as the three of them stutter at that. "Now, you all seem like decent people, and it's been nice talking to you, but I have to see the Jarl." He turns on his heel and waves over his shoulder. "Later."

"Wait!"

Desmond looks back. "You've never been to Whiterun before, have you?" asks Farkas. "Let us escort you to Dragonsreach, the Jarl's palace. It's the least we can do."

He thinks about that for a second, before nodding. It would be bad to get lost, although the city doesn't look that big, and walking in with three warriors will give him some street cred. Aela immediately drops into position on his left, while Farkas and Vilkas trail behind.

"So," he starts, just before the silence becomes awkward, "what is you three do?"

"Well," Aela says, "we're members of the Companions, which is…"


	6. Wizards Are Unreasonable

Desmond gazed flatly at the hooded man in front of him, letting his ire seep into his stare. The wizard shifted uncomfortably, hands clenching and unclenching in the folds of his robe.

He let the silence stretch on for several seconds, before sighing heavily and pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closing in agitation.

 _Video games. They made_ no _sense._

"So," Desmond said, opening his eyes and glaring from underneath his lashes. "Let me see if I've understood this information correctly."

"You-" he pointed to Farengar, "are a court wizard. _His_ court wizard." The finger moved to point to Jarl Balgruuf, standing off to the side and looking torn between anxiety and amusement. "He pays you a sizeable amount of money to stand here and look wizardly and do wizard things." Farengar nodded, looking the faintest bit insulted. Desmond's finger moved from the Jarl to the trio of Companions standing on his other side. " _They_ ," he stressed the word, "are rather experienced members of what I understand to be a fighter's guild that can be _payed for the use of their services_. They live _one staircase away from you_."

He pointed to himself. "And you want _me_ , an inexperienced, unknown stranger who _literally_ just went through a traumatic dragon attack, to slaughter every moving thing in a tomb likely full of your dead ancestors to find a stone tablet that may or may not actually _be there_ ," he angrily gestured to the trio of fighters, who now looked extremely uncomfortable, "when you have a group of able bodied people willing to do it for some gold coins who live _literally two minutes away from you_."

Farengar shuffled from foot to foot. "Well, when you put it like that, it does sound unreasonable…"

Desmond growled to himself. "This is ridiculous. _You_ are ridiculous. This fucking situation is ridiculous!" He plopped down into a chair, muttering to himself and rubbing his temples, trying to stave off the incoming headache forming behind his eyes.

"You would be compensated handsomely, friend," the Jarl wheedled, internally smirking at the way the stranger- Desmond? was that his name?- stiffened. Ah, gold, the one thing that never failed to sway the hearts of men.

The stranger sighed and seemed to collapse into himself a little. "How much compensation we talking about here?"

"Five hundred gold," he said, "as well as one yet undetermined additional reward should the dragonstone be where Farengar thinks it is."

Fuck, that was a lot of gold. But this could also be a dangerous waste of his time. Did he really need it that much?

A thought struck him. He flipped around in his chair, arms braced on the back, and stared down the trio of companions. "If I split the gold evenly between us, would one of you accompany me?"

They looked surprised for a moment, but seemed to consider his request seriously. Finally, after a minute, Aela nodded.

"I would accompany you for 250 gold," she said. "That seems reasonable."

Desmond grinned. "Alright, thanks." He turned back around. "Yo, when do you want this done by?"

"As soon as physically possible."

"That means now, doesn't it." He sighed. "Well then, Aela, looks like we got some work to do."

#

"Why did I agree to this," he muttered to himself, taking down bandits with kill shot after kill shot.

 _This_ , he thought, shivering from the snow that pelted his skin through the gaps in his armor, _is why I hate nature._

He struggled through the snow alongside Aela, stripping the corpses of their arrows and gold and potions, and let out a sigh of relief when they finally made it to the sheltered recess of the door.

He took a deep breath and laid a hand on the intricately carved metal.

 _* To Bleak Falls Barrow_

"Let's go."


	7. Read The Fine Print

The interior of the barrow is rather large, much larger than it appeared to be from the outside. The ceiling is peppered with gaping holes where it isn't entirely collapsed, letting snow drifts pile up against walls and feather across floors, pale sunlight illuminating the dark corners of the ancient stones.

 _It looks like something out of Lord of the Rings,_ Desmond thinks, as he skitters silently around fallen pillars towards a trio of bandits arguing around a campfire, Aela just off to his left.

He motions her forward and she nods in understanding. She charges in, a distraction, stabbing one man through the chest while he hops up on a pile of weathered masonry and takes out their archer with three quick arrows. The last bandit gets the privilege of both a sword to the gut and an arrow through the eye socket. It is fast and quiet and far too easy.

He loots their corpses and moves on, an oily feeling twisting in his gut. The scene flashes before his eyes- _Borgia guards on the banks of the canals grab everything you can you don't have enough time and_ you need medicine-

He runs his hand through his short hair and counts his fingers six times( _find a synch nexus find a synch nexus findasynchnexus-_ ) and shoves the feeling way down where he doesn't have to think about it anymore.

He brushes off Aela's concerned looks and soldiers ahead, killing some giant rat things- skeevers? He thinks that's what they're called- and a frostbite spider without much thought. Then there's a man(a dark elf, like Irileth), suspended from the ceiling by giant webs, and it's so unexpected that he almost laughs.

The guy says something about treasure, and to be honest he's just a little too shifty for Desmond to be comfortable with, but leaving him suspended is just cruel, and they need to go down that corridor anyways, so he flips on his eagle vision(why hadn't he been using it before?) and thoughtlessly buries a dagger in the guys stomach when he all but blazes red like a beacon in front of him. When the elf's health bar has petered out and vanished, he flips his grip on his knife and hacks at the glowing weak points in the webs until they are just shreds at his feet.

"He might not have been an enemy," Aela says quietly from behind him as he sticks the elf's strange golden claw thing in his bag.

"He was."

She frowns. "How could you tell?"

He pauses. "…call it a gut instinct."

She frowns again, more considering than disapproving, and mercifully lets the subject drop.

He's almost sad that they didn't just turn around there, because the next room has zombies in it.

He freezes in actual shock when he sees them and the only thing that keeps him from getting his skull caved in is Aela's battle cry, which startles him out of his stupor quickly enough to force his hidden blade through the throat and spine of the one coming at him, the dagger in his hand simultaneously disemboweling it.

(His fingers brush it's chalky papery skin and he watches the sightless gleam leave it's clouded eyes. He wants to throw up.)

When the reanimated corpses lie mangled on the floor and Aela is looking at him, so concerned it hurts, his endocrine system decides that this is the straw to break the camel's back and now is an excellent time to release all the pent up anxiety and disbelief and emotions in one breathtaking panic attack.

He comes to in a corner ot the room, curled up as small as he can make himself, muttering in Arabic and clawing at the circuit board scars on his arm. He knows he's been crying, can feel the sting in his eyes and the burn in his lungs, and Aela is sitting cross legged across from him. She is, mercifully, not touching him(thank god, once Shaun tried to pat his back and nearly got a blade in the eye because all he could see was threat threat threat), but speaking softly about nothing in a soothing tone of voice.

(His eagle vision flips on without permission and only when he sees the unmistakable glow of azure does he calm down.)

He takes a few deep breaths and wipes half dried tear tracks off his face, smiling bitterly. "Sorry you had to see that."

She shakes her head. "Do not apologize. Battle dreams are nothing to be ashamed of, and not something that can be helped." She pauses. "Although I have never seen someone come out of them so quickly."

He plastered an approximation of a smile on his face. "I've had lots of practice."

She frowns. "You should not have had to." She shakes her head again and sits back on her haunches. "I am sorry this has happened to you."

Desmond stands slowly, stretching his cramped muscles, and making his way towards the door out of the room, Aela falling in a step behind.

"Well, sometimes we just don't get what we want. Life isn't fair."

#

He says the same thing at the Word Wall a few rooms later, arms wrapped around himself tightly so all the new knowledge in his head doesn't shake him apart and spill out of the strained seams of his psyche.

Aela wordlessly hands him the Dragonstone and brushes an uncharacteristically gentle hand over his shoulder. Something solid settles between them, something like friendship. He thinks he might have gained another touchstone for his tattered sanity.

It's a nice thought.


	8. Dragonslayer

Desmond slams the tablet on the table in front of Farengar, feeling slightly better at the look of unadulterated panic that flashes through the wizard's eyes for a few seconds.

"Here's your fucking lizard rock."

Farengar somehow manages to look even more constipated and outraged than usual. "It's called the Dragonstone."

"Whatever." He flops into a chair just as Jarl Balgruuf enters the room. The hulking blond man is carrying two coin purses, which he hands to Desmond and Aela.

 _* 250 gold added_

"For your services, friends," he booms jovially. "Was the Dragonstone in Bleak Falls Barrow, stranger?"

"Yep. We found the stupid rock."

" _Dragonstone_ ," Farengar hisses. Desmond ignores him.

Balgruuf grins. "Well then, I believe you were promised an extra reward, yes? Then, by my right as Jarl, I hereby declare that you have earned the right to purchase property in the city. Please speak to my steward if you have any questions."

Desmond gives him a weird look. The right to buy a house? That's the guys idea of a reward? Whatever. He won't look a gift horse in the mouth. "Thanks, man. Where can I-"

He never gets the chance to finish his question, because Irileth practically throws herself into the room, as close to panicking as he has ever seen her.

"My Jarl, please come quickly! There is an emergency!" Balgruuf rushes out after her.

Desmond is content to sit in this chair and stare at Farengar uncomfortably, but then little white text appears in the upper field of his vision, and he sits up straight in surprise.

 **\+ Follow Jarl Balgruuf**

He wants to scream, because this is undoubtedly the beginning of an important quest(which is funny, because he hadn't gotten a text prompt about investigating the barrow. Why was that?), and he really doesn't want to be involved at all. He gets up and follows anyway, which must say something about how used he is to being controlled by higher powers.

Not an especially comforting thought.

He gets to the top of the stairs just in time to hear everything going to hell.

"…dragon attacking the western watchtower."

Fuck no. Abort mission. Abort abort abort.

He's about to turn around and walk straight out of the building, but his luck is really shitty and Balgruuf catches sight of him.

"Desmond!" He freezes. "You have already done much for us, and I have no right to ask more of you, but will you help us defeat this dragon? You undoubtedly have the most experience with them."

Balgruuf looks like a kicked puppy. _Say no, Desmond. Say no, say no, say no._ "Yeah, sure." _Fuck_.

The man visibly brightens up. "Thank you, friend. Go with Irileth, round up as many guards as you can. Return safely."

He follows Irileth down the stairs, and is almost out of the damned building when he's stopped by Aela.

"What's going on, Desmond?"

"Gonna go fight a dragon. It's gonna be a blast. You should totally come," he says, with a completely deadpan voice and expression.

She looks torn between laughing at his sarcasm and smacking him. Hard. "You are in absolutely no condition to be fighting a dragon, you idiot. I am coming with you."

"Like I said, it's going to be a blast." He doesn't say anything more, not until they're halfway to the watchtower, a contingency of yellow clad guards trailing behind them like a group of pointy violent ducklings.

"Fuck," he mutters, so low that only Aela hears him, "we're probably going to fucking die."

She punches him in the shoulder. "Don't say that. We're going to be fine."

"But-" She punches him again, harder this time. He grumbles, rubbing his poor abused arms.

"We. Are. Going. To. Be. _Fine_."

He never gets the chance to reply, because then a roar echoes through the air and three tons of flaming angry lizard swoops down out of the sky.

Desmond has his bow out before he even knows what he's doing, firing arrow after arrow as fast as he can at the dragon's tough hide. Thankfully, the others are not far behind, and before long, the dragon(his health bar proclaims his name to be Mirmulnir) is dropping to the ground, half of his health bar gone. He nearly cheers.

He lets Irileth and Aela take on the melee half of the battle(and the fire breath), choosing instead to hang back and continue to shoot. None of his ancestors were particularly skilled swordsmen, though they got by. Connor, however, was as good with a bow as you could get without actually ascending to some form of godhood, so he's going to play to his strengths.

When Mirmulnir's health bar finally blinks away, Desmond nearly collapses in relief. It's rather anticlimactic, actually. He thought this would be harder.

The beast's final breaths rumble in the air. " _Noo… Dovahkiin._ " He stops moving, and aside from the harsh stench of soot and the gasps of the injured, everything is still.

Desmond slings his bow onto his back and stalks forward, stopping level with Aela. He stares at the hulking corpse, and hesitantly reaches out a hand, brushing the scales on its snout.

Then it bursts into flames.

Desmond yelps and flails backwards, almost smacking Aela in the face. They stare, speechless, as fire consumes the dead beast, bits of scales flaking off and rising into the air like ashes until there is nothing left but bones.

Light rises from the skeleton then, a bright mass of colorful energy, and writhes through the air at lightning speed until it strikes him in the chest and settles into his bones.

 **\+ Dragon Soul Absorbed**

Everyone is absolutely silent. Until one guard falls to the ground, kneeling awestruck at Desmond's feet.

"I would not have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes…" he whispers.

"Dragonborn."


	9. In Which Aela Takes No Nonsense

Desmond shifted from foot to foot, fighting the urge to squirm under Jarl Balgruuf's gaze like a guilty child.

"Dragonborn," Balgruuf said flatly.

Desmond rocked back on his heels. "Uh, if it makes any difference, they're probably wrong? I'm like 99% sure I'm not a dragonborn."

Now, instead of merely being annoyed, Balgruuf also looked confused. "What on earth do you mean? You absorbed a dragon soul. The greybeards called you to High Hrothgar! They would not do that had you not been dragonborn."

"Okay, but consider this- the greybeards? They were probably reacting to the dragon dying or whatever. And, no matter what any of the guards told you, I'm almost certain we all had a dragonfire and adrenaline induced mass hallucination."

He paused, and then gestured to himself. "Also, do I look like a dragonborn to you?"

Balgruuf snorted. "A dragonborn does not look specifically like any one man or woman of any race, although the first were Nords. They are given the gift of dragon blood by Akatosh, born as a mortal with the soul of a dragon."

They stared at each other. "Um, okay? I'm not exactly sure what you want me to say to that, but I'm pretty sure I'm not a dragonborn. I'm not even from Skyrim!"

Balgruuf flapped a hand in dismissal. "Bah, there have been dragonborn from Cyrodiil before."

"What the fuck is Cyrodiil?"

You could have heard a pin drop in the hall. Everyone was staring at him, astonished.

 _Oh fuck,_ he thought. _I said something wrong._

"Uh, I should- yeah, I should really just- I'm going to leave now." And, as fast as he could, he turned and all but ran out of the hall.

 _Welp, that could have gone better._

 _#_

"Aeelllaaa," Desmond whined, as he was literally dragged back from the city gate by the back of his shirt.

She had intercepted him as he was trying to leave the city. He had sold all of his useless junk(and only gotten 351 gold for it, too. That Belethor was a cheap bastard) and was on his way out to do some exploring or something. To be honest, he really didn't have a solid plan in mind, his main goal was just to get out of the city and into some breathing room. It was strange to think about how such a tiny town could be so stifling. It wasn't even as large as the Farm- nope. No thinking about the Farm today or ever, no siree, he was trying to have positive thoughts here-

"-ou even heard a word I've said to you this entire time?"

Desmond smiled obnoxiously. "Well, I think I got it. But just in case- tell me the whole thing again I wasn't listening."

Aela groaned. "You absolute idiot. I _said,_ 'Where do you think you're going you absolute utter asshole, and what makes you think it was acceptable to leave without telling me? You are coming with me and you are staying with me and my shield brothers for _at least_ a week and we are going to work out some of those frankly alarming issues of yours because I have… grown attached to you.'"

"Aww, Aela," Desmond cooed. He was probably going to get punched. He didn't care. "I didn't know you cared. That's so-"

"If you know what's good for you you will shut your mouth until we get to Jorvaskrr."

He did.


	10. Pockets Don't Exist

Jorvaskrr is about what you can expect the inside of a giant overturned boat building to be. It's certainly spacious, and also dimly lit and kind of smelly and surprisingly aesthetically pleasing.

Of course, Desmond doesn't really take this in until a few minutes into his stay, because Aela kind of physically tosses him through the front door she just kicked open and he spends the next minute or so trying not to choke on his empty lungs.

Because he has no filter, his next move is trying to get himself killed.

"Aaaaaeeeelllllllaaaaa," he whines dragging her name out in the most annoying, grating way he possibly can. "What was that for?" He grins up at her, still sprawled across the floor on his back. "We were doing so well! You alluded to having feelings other than casual simmering hatred, nobody died on the way over here- where did we go wrong?"

She cracks her knuckles, staring down at him intimidatingly, eyes half amused. He takes it as a good sign. "Oh believe me, someone could definitely still die." He just grins. She kicks him none too subtly on the way to a chair, teeth bared in satisfaction at his yelp of indignation and pain. "And don't change the subject. Putting attention on someone else is not going to get you out of- what did you call it? When i was dragging you feet first up the steps?"

"Group therapy," he mutters, wincing in pain as he sits up, throbbing bruises on his back making themselves known. Those stone steps were a bitch.

He throws a half-assed wave at Farkas and Vilkas, who have been staring since he entered the door, but then, to be fair, so has everyone else. Farkas offers him a wave back, but drops his hand after Vilkas elbowed him in the side, not in the least bit discreet. He would snicker, but they look like they're trying _so_ hard to be professional, and he doesn't want to make them feel bad.

"Ah, yes," Aela nods distractedly. "Go downstairs and wait for me, my room is in the second hallway on the left side." She gestures vaguely to the staircase, and sends him threatening looks when he doesn't move fast enough for her liking, and he likes his collarbones intact and inside his body where they belong, so he obligingly hurries it up. "Don't break anything."

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, mother." Then he barely manages to survive the onslaught of bread she throws at him for his sass, catching the loaves just in time to keep them from smacking him in the face.

 _*Bread (47) Added_

He paused. "...Did you just throw forty seven fucking loaves of bread at me?"

"...Yes?"

He sighs and munches viciously on his newly acquired snack and nearly kicks open the door at the bottom of the stairs. "Fucking video games."


	11. Therapy Works(But Only If You Let It)

Desmond had only been waiting for a couple minutes when Aela walked in. She ushered him away from the bookshelf where he was browsing and settled him on a chair, while she sat on the bed across from him. She quirked her eyebrow like she was waiting for him to speak, and when he didn't she threw a pillow at him.

"Talk."

He shrugged, stalling. "What do you want me to say?"

She rolled her eyes. "Well, you can start with who you are and where you come from, Sir 'I've-Never-Heard-Of-Cyrodiil.'" That seems like a good beginning."

He let out an explosive sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Ugh. You just had to pick the hardest topic, didn't you."

She leaned back on her elbows and watched him expectantly. He dropped his gaze to the floor, so he didn't have to look at her expression when she ultimately didn't believe him.

"Well, when I said I wasn't exactly from around here, I meant it on a much larger scale than you were probably picturing." he made a vague gesture with his hands. "You were probably thinking like country or continent wise, and I meant it more in the… dimensional or plane of existence scale."

She froze, muscles tensing, and oh no, there was another cultural thing here he was missing, wasn't there? "You are Daedra?"

"Uh, I don't think so?" Desmond paused. "What's a Daedra?"

She said nothing for a long moment, nearly glaring at him in her intense scrutiny. She rose fluidly from the bed and shut the doors with a resounding click, feet silent on the thick carpet of the floors. She settled on the bed again, pulling a fur around her shoulders, and leaned into the corner, somehow seeming even more interested in what was coming than she had been previously.

"...continue."

He shrugged, trying to stall again, no matter how ineffective it would turn out to be. "This is going to take a while. Like, a long ass time."

She just quirked an eyebrow, looking rather like she was going to punch him in the fucking face if he didn't get on with it, and Desmond decided that now would be a great time to start talking.

"First things first, alright?" He just had to clarify. "There's tons of technical shit involved with how I got here; shit I don't actually understand. I'm not even sure if this actually _is_ a different dimension than mine, or if I'm only on a different planet- or maybe this is all one big fucking hallucination and I'm still flat on my ass and out cold on the Grand Temple floor- I don't _know_." Desmond rubbed tiredly at his eyes, already feeling exhausted despite the fact that he hadn't even begun to explain yet. "So when I say I don't understand something, I honest to god don't _understand_ it, got me?"

Aela tilted her head as she stared at him, eyes narrowed in examination. Desmond shifted under her gaze, not willing to admit to himself that it made him just the tiniest bit uncomfortable. He'd been through enough shit already, being stared at shouldn't unnerve him. Except, well, it did.

Finally, Aela seemed to see something in him that she found worthy of her approval, because next thing he knew she was nodding along like this was all some big conspiracy that she was in on. "I understand. Explain as much as you can, and we will work through it all from there. Does this seem fair?"

Desmond leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. He sucked in a breath, as much as his lungs could hold, before letting it out all in one great sigh. This was definitely going to be one hell of a conversation, but it certainly was off to a better start than he'd been hoping for. He straightened up and looked her in the eyes. "Yeah, sounds good."

"You're going to need a shit ton of backstory before we even get to my life, so settle yourself in." He pulled out a roll of parchment from one of her shelves and grabbed a stick of charcoal. "Do you have a map of your world? Like, with all the continents and stuff?" Aela nodded. "Get it out please."

She rose to do so, and he quickly sketched out a decent map of his earth with all the countries he could remember, thankful that he liked geography in what had passed for high school at The Farm.

He paused, eyeing his map. Decent enough, ignoring coastlines and shit. And the actual size. And all the smudges... Drawing was hard, okay? He tossed the first awful map away and grabbed another roll of parchment, drawing a second, and frankly much better, map.

He set the two maps side by side on the table and motioned Aela to sit beside him. He labeled his 'Earth' when he saw that the other one was labeled 'Nirn'. "Is Nirn round or flat?"

She looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "What does that even mean?"

"Does your world have a place where it ends? Like an edge? Earth is round, which means that if I traveled from one end of the map to the other and stayed on a straight path the whole time I would end up right where I started. Earth is a sphere."

He dragged his finger across his map to illustrate his point and smiled when Aela's eyes lit up with understanding. Maybe this wouldn't be so difficult after all.

"Nirn is flat." The huntress answered, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms across her armored chest. She gave a small huff and rolled her eyes. "Many a cocky sailor have sailed off the edge of the world through naught but sheer stupidity."

He nodded. "Okay, and how long would it take you to travel from one end of Skyrim to the other? How large would you estimate Skyrim, Tamriel, and Nirn as a whole are?"

She thought for a few moments. "You can cross Skyrim in three and a half days if you travel continuously. I'd estimate it to be… between 200 and 300 square miles. Tamriel, I'd say is about 2000 to 2500 square miles, including the islands. Nirn as a whole is a bit more difficult to conceptualize, but based off the size of the land masses I'd put it at 160000 square miles."

"Mmhmm," the Assassin hummed thoughtfully, taking the information in and mentally calculating how much that would be on a map. "And what would you put the population of Skyrim, Tamriel, and Nirn at? Just at a guess."

She tapped the table pensively, nails clicking on the hardened wood and brows furrowed in deep concentration. It was obvious that she'd never had to put much thought toward this subject before. "Skyrim has no more than five hundred peoples, likely far less than that. Tamriel itself I would put closer to... five or six thousand. I have no way to speak for the other continents, but as an uneducated guess I would say the whole of Nirn carries about seventeen thousand peoples."

She paused, and glared at him. "I do hope these questions actually have a point, and you're not just trying to stall again."

Desmond chuckled, maybe a little nervously, but that was nobody's business. "Okay, Earth is absolutely massive compared to Nirn. You're lucky I like geography, or this explanation would make so much less sense."

He tapped America on the map. "The country where I'm from is called the United States of America, or the "U.S." for short. It's divided up into 50 individual "states," and each has their own local government."

Aela brightened. "Like the holds within Skyrim! Each of the seven holds of skyrim is governed by the Jarl within their capital city."

Desmond nodded. "Right, exactly like that. Every state's got it's own capital city, and the capital of the whole country is Washington D.C. The U.S.," he smiled, "is just over... 3 million square miles, I'm pretty sure." Because he was a fucking bartender, not a geography professor.

He laughed as her jaw dropped. "It's actually pretty tiny compared with some of the other continents. There's seven of those, in all. North and South America, Oceania, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Antarctica. Asia is the largest and Europe is the smallest. " He tapped them out in turn. "Earth's got, like, two hundred countries. The smallest is Vatican City, which is not even one fifth of a square mile- -the only reason it's even it's own country is because of political reasons and shit, "he waved a hand in dismissal. "Largest country would have to be Russia, which is some massively ridiculous number like, 6 million square miles or something like that. I don't really remember."

Desmond smothered a laugh behind his hand at her gaping expression and brought out the big guns. "The entire Earth is about, uh, 190 million square miles? It's got a population of over seven billion people."

He tilted his head to pin his companion with a stare, and her reaction didn't disappoint. "You're joking. That's impossible," she breathed. She'd stood up sometime in the midst of her jaw-hinged fit of speechlessness, and was now grasping empty hands around imaginary somethings- perhaps the weapon she'd left lying on the bed behind her?- and Desmond shivered, and swept the thought away.

"It's super possible, Aela," he grinned, instead, "because our planet is literally about a million times bigger than yours."

"We're also, like, _centuries_ ahead of you guys in terms of technology and science, but you do have some things we don't, like magic, and elves, and, uh, dragons." He paused, and the two of them smirked at each other like two kids getting away with rule-breaking. "Our planet is entirely inhabited by humans and animals, no magical population to speak of, although Those Who Came Before had things that seem like magic and were just incredible feats of technology…."

"You keep saying that word, 'technology', but what does it mean?"

Oh man. And the theoretical stuff begins. This actually was going to be difficult. Fuck.

Desmond steepled his fingers together and scowled minutely as he thought of a way to explain it simply. "Technology means like... machines and stuff. Some of our world is really poor and lives without most if not all technology, and then some people _choose_ to live without it. But a good portion of the earth has electricity- which is, like... lightning- trapped in little metal wires that we use to power other things."

"You mean like a soul gem?"

That sounded...ominous. "Uh, soul gem?"

She nodded. She stood, rummaged through a chest by her bed, and returned to the table with a fist sized lump of luminescent crystal.

"This is a soul gem. When you are in a battle, you can cast the spell Soul Trap, and when that enemy dies their soul will be trapped in the gem." She flicked the crystal lightly, and it made a sharp tinkling sound, like broken glass clinking together. "They are used to power enchantments on weapons, amongst other things. I have heard that mages use them to power some of their more complex spells, but I am no mage and I do not know if this is true."

"Like a battery!" Desmond nearly cheered- something that made sense! Well, aside from the magical bits, but… knowing that not everything in this world was absolutely different was comforting.

At Aela's inquiring glance, Desmond hurried to tack on, "They're little containers, about as large as your thumb," he held up his own for reference, "and they hold a certain amount of electricity. A lot of them, you just throw away when they run out, but some are rechargeable- -which means you can just put more electricity in them."

She nodded. "Yes, that does seem to be an appropriate comparison, although the only rechargeable soul gem I've ever even heard of in passing is the Star Of Azura."

They lapsed into a momentary silence. Desmond blinked at her, wanting to ask- but then he cleared his throat and decided against it. At his own guess, he had plenty of time to ask his own questions, later. "So, uh, back on topic."

He made a grandiose gesture with one hand. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, for an extremely condensed history of the planet Earth." Inwardly, he groaned, but then Aela's eyes lit up with interest and a bruning sort of curiosity, and suddenly he couldn't find it in himself to give a half-assed lecture. Fuck it all.

"Once upon a time there lived a race of god-like beings, called Those Who Came Before… or, precursors." He grimaced. "They were really fucking powerful, and they sort of created us puny little humans to be their slaves." Aela's eyes went dark and scary again, so he hurried on to the next part- -" Um, we sort of worshipped them as gods later on, but they really weren't. They were just as mortal as the rest of us, nothing special there."

Aela muttered beneath her breath, something about "playing at being Divine," or something. Desmond decided it would be best to just ignore that and carry on.

"Then, a great shitstorm of a natural disaster, also known as the Calamity, hit Earth hard and destroyed nearly all life on the planet… except for a handful of precursors and a few hundred humans. And, as far as most humans know, the world's history starts from there."

Aela frowned. "Are you telling me that most of your people do not even know their own history?"

He smiled sadly. "Yeah. I'm all for telling people the truth about what actually happened, but at this point? No one would believe us. Even if they did, there'd just be mass panic. How would you react if you were told that everything you knew about you and your people was wrong and that you were actually created as slaves for a powerful god-race?"

Aela snorted. Her features smoothed out a bit, and she nodded at him in assent.

"Exactly." Desmond hummed.

"The hand full of precursors remaining died a few years later, sealing their memories and minds into their temples and tools and shit. Ruins of their technology were left behind, hidden away from the rest of us little humans. We call the special bits of it that we find "pieces of Eden." Back before the Calamity, they were used to control humanity, specifically golden orbs called Apples of Eden." He very pointedly did not think about his own Apple, which was metaphorically burning a hole in his pocket.

"Humanity eventually gave rise to two opposing factions, Templars and Assassins." Here- Desmond cackled internally- _Here_ was where things really hit it off. "The Templars believe that humanity can only be free through enslavement, and that taking away people's ability to choose is the correct path to creating a utopia. My faction, the Assassins, disagrees. We live by the idea that humans should determine their own actions, that life without true freedom is no life at all."

Aela snorted. "I am inclined to agree. These Templars sound like the worst of men. Nobody should have such absolute power over another, not without consent."

Desmond paused, and smiled over at her. "...You would make a good Assassin, Aela."

She snorted. "I am a Companion, through and through." Then her face softened just the tiniest bit, and she looked over at him quietly. "However… by all means, continue your tale. Your ideology intrigues me."

He nodded, obliging her request. "The Assassins and the Templars have been fighting for hundreds of years, across the entire globe, a secret war that has claimed the lives of thousands. My ancestors have been Assassins from the beginning. I'm descended from some of the most famous Assassins of all time; Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Ratonhnhaké:ton or Connor Kenway… to, well, name a few. I grew up reading about them in history book and I was expected to live up to their legacies because of our blood ties, or some bullshit like that," he let out an explosive sigh.

Aela had a knowing look on her features when she met his stare, this time. "Quite the legends to match, I take it?"

"Thing is, my dad was an asshole who just… really didn't like me no matter whatever the hell I did," at this, Aela frowned, but Desmond powered right over whatever she would have said. " -and by the time I was sixteen I never believed a word out of his mouth. He kept spouting idealistic shit, and going on and _on_ about how we were Assassins, that the Templars were out there waiting to find and destroy us, and I thought he was insane."

"You no longer took his warnings seriously," Aela guessed, and Desmond nodded.

"The worst part is," he sighed and rubbed at his temples, "I really, really _should_ have."

He tipped back in his chair, absentmindedly tapping his fingers against his knees. "But I didn't. When I was sixteen, I ran away from our secret compound, the Farm- -a safe place for Assassins that the Templars didn't know about- -and I ended up in New York, the biggest city in the United States. I was stuck on this idea that, if I just kept my head down, I could ignore all the shit I grew up with and just live out a normal life like I wanted to. I thought that, since I didn't associate with the Assassins anymore, the Templars wouldn't come after me like my dad always said they would."

"Instead of worrying about the Templars, I spent my time paranoid about Assassins finding me and dragging me back to my dad." There was the dark and scary look again. Desmond continued on like a particularly determined soldier. "I was so scared about being hauled back to the Farm that I didn't even think much about the Templars." A wry, bitter smile stretched across his face. "Thing is, the Templars _didn't_ ignore me just because I didn't hang out with their enemy. Instead of the Assassins I spent so much time worrying about taking me away, it was the _Templars_ who kidnapped me. They locked me up for a while, and then put me in a machine that can make you relive the lives of your ancestors through their memories."

Aela's eyes widened. "That must be magic. Such a thing would be impossible otherwise."

"Ah ah ah," Desmond wiggled a finger. " _Technology_. There's no magic on earth, just technology so advanced that it _seems_ like magic." He leaned forward again and propped his chin on his hand, tracing the whorls on the table with a finger.

"It was called the Animus," he told her. Aela settled back onto the bed against and crossed her legs underneath her. "I was forced to relive the life of my ancestor, Altaïr, while the Templars watched the memories from outside the Animus in case they could find out the locations of Pieces of Eden that would let them control the rest of humanity."

Aela's face twisted into a sneer, and Desmond sighed and resolved to listen to her short rant about 'idiot Divine-pretenders, worse than Daedra, scum of the earth and honorless fools.' It made him want to laugh, and some part of him settled down comfortably at the knowledge that he wasn't the only one absolutely _done_ with the Templar's shit ideas.

After she was finished, and had cast him a vaguely embarrassed grin, he continued. "Thankfully, I didn't have to stay with the bastards long. I ended up being rescued by an Assassin spy within the Templars named," his breath hitched; he very firmly ignored it, carried on, "Lucy Stillman, and she broke me out and took me to an Assassin hideout, where I met two other Assassins, Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane, and where they put me back in the animus to relive the memories of my next ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze."

He huffed out a bitter laugh. "Unfortunately, the Animus has a unique side effect called the Bleeding Effect. Having two or three people's worth of memories in your head on top of your own makes things get a little… jumbled up, you could say." Her eyes widened in horror. "I spent so much time in the Animus that I forgot how to be myself. I would spend hours or even days thinking I was Altaïr or Ezio and I couldn't handle it. I was going insane." Aela placed a careful hand on his shoulder, but he was too deep in his own memories to notice.

"Eventually the Templars found us again, and we were forced to relocate to a new base in Italy," he tapped it on the map, "to Ezio's home, actually, and I relived more of his memories while we searched for a Piece of Eden to help aid us in the fight against the templars. I finally found one, and the four of us- Lucy, Rebecca, Shaun, and I- traveled there. In the Precursor temple I was confronted by one of Those Who Came Before, who called herself Juno." Aela growled softly as his eyes went dark, fingers digging into his palms. "I touched the Apple we had found, and Juno took control of my body and…" He took a deep breath, "and killed Lucy."

Aela's eyes went wide, and before Desmond could gather himself up again and brush it off as nothing, she'd leaned across the space between them to grab his shoulders. He was forced to look her in the eyes; eyes that held fire and brimstone promises of pain. The Assassin swallowed thickly.

"This _Juno_ ," Aela bit the name out, like it was a particularly nasty curse word she'd been saying all her life but had just now learned the true meaning of. "She _forced_ you to kill your _shield-sister_?"

"My…" Desmond trailed off, before he remembered what exactly a shield-sibling _was_. "What? No, Lucy wasn't- she wasn't my shield-sibling, or anything like _that-_ we aren't _like_ the Companions, Aela, she was just-"

"She was," Aela cut in immediately, all smooth and calm and nothing like the scrambling mess Desmond had become. "This Lucy was your friend, a person that you trusted to watch your back in a fight. She, and the other two of your faction- Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane- came for you when you were in danger and took you to a safer place, treated your injuries and gave you something like a home. You trusted them, and they knew how to fight for and trust you in turn. Are these not shield-siblings? They certainly sound it, to me."

Desmond wasn't able to formulate a response. He fell back against his chair- these seats were hella deep, comfy, and smelled heavily of leather. He sort of really liked them- and stared at her, mind rushing back to where he kept the memories of Post-Abstergo Imprisonment. Not the ones from after his dad had joined their little save-the-world team, after Lucy had- _no_ , he kept those is a particularly dark corner of his mind, locked in a chest that was drowning in metaphorical chains. Just like most of the other memories he associated with his _father_.

He shook his head, very firmly lead his thoughts away from those locks, and focused on brighter images: Shaun, smiling into a cup of tasty, tasty leaf-water, ("For fucks sake, Desmond, it's called _tea_.") as he compiled new codex entries at a rapid fire rate. Rebecca, who he would always associate with the tap-tap-tapping of keyboard keys and cheeky smiles and _horrible_ puns ("What did they _teach_ you at that Farm of yours, Dezzy? Whoever it is, I'll _flail_ them- you don't even know how to run a Task Manager?! _Who th'fuck doesn't know how to_ -"). Hell, he even had fond memories of 'Baby' (flashes of clear skies and desert sands, warm winds ruffling his hood and feelings of _home-home-home-_ A familiar reflection in the sweeping waters of the canals, the smell of _cafe_ , and wonderful, clever _Leo-_ Bowstrings _twang_ , arrow flies, prey falls, crashing waves and salt sprays on cliffs, the rocking floor of wooden planks, the feeling of _belonging-_ ). Yeah, good memories, even if not all of them were technically his.

Then there was Lucy. Sunshine hair and a sparkly smile and eyes that were witty and knowing and held just the smallest bit of sadness-

Desmond planted his elbows on his knees, leaned forward, and buried his face into his palms. A warm hand clamped down on his shoulder, tight and firm and there, and Desmond focused on it like a drowning man yearning for land. He took a couple of steadying breaths and, once he was certain his eyes were dry, he looked up to meet Aela's unwavering stare.

"Are you going to let me tell you my tragic backstory or not," he asked thickly, and it wasn't really a question.

She looked satisfied somehow, even with concern flashing brightly in her eyes, and she nodded. He resolved to ignore it as he thought of a way to continue his summary.

Aela wasn't having that, though.

"She was important to you," the huntress pointed out firmly, like it was a fact, and fuck, yeah it _was_. "If anything else, that means something, Desmond. That this _Juno_ ," she spat, again, darkness swirling through her gaze, "dared to take your will away and force your hands to end her- that is nothing less than the most _twisted_ immorality. This Juno is no friend of mine, be assured of that."

That… Desmond wasn't going to fucking cry. He was _not_. But… god, how long had it been? How long had he gone without someone to share his problems with, to tell him his feelings mattered, to take his side without any hesitation? It felt- good. It felt _so_ good.

He flashed her a slightly wobbly smile. "Yeah, Juno's a bitch." The two of them shared a wavering smile, and Desmond very consciously decided to ignore the entire "shield-sibling" thing for now. Aela made no move to force him to confront that, which he was grateful for.

"So yeah- Lucy… " he shook his head, pointedly looking away from the understanding that crossed her face, and continued. "Juno tried to justify it to me, said that Lucy would have betrayed us, that she was a Templar spy." He huffed out a bitter laugh "I'm still not sure if it was true or not, but… I like to think it wasn't."

Aela said nothing, but her hand left his shoulder and grabbed his fist instead. He uncurled his fingers and accepted the touch. It was grounding.

Shit, maybe this group therapy thing was actually working. God knows Desmond had some real shit that he'd never actually been able to talk through with anyone, before. The short chats with Clay had helped, some, but they weren't… they hadn't actually been all that focused on helping Desmond work through his various and numerous issues. There had been more pressing matters at the time. And after that, well, Clay hadn't exactly been around to chat with anymore.

"She did something to me, after that; put me into a coma- I just… I couldn't wake up," He explained, when he saw a flash of confusion cross her face at the unfamiliar word. "I just slept and slept, stuck in… dreams, or memories. A lot of which weren't actually mine."

Aela made a noise of understanding, hand tightening its grip on his own. Desmond nodded at her, thankful for the tether to himself- not Altair, or Ezio, or Connor, or even Haytham… just him. Desmond.

"Then my- my dad showed up. He wasn't too keen on the whole 'multiple sets of ancestral memories running around in his son's head and making him go insane' bit, so he had Shaun and Becca put me back in the Animus to try and look for ways to stop the Bleeding."

Aela paused in her soothing motions, going tense with repressed shock and something bitter, like unresolved violence. "Your father," she said slowly, coldly, too angry to even _begin_ moving past slow and deliberate rage, "the one man who is supposed to love you more than _anyone_ _else_ in the _world_ , was so upset that you were going insane- to further _his_ cause, might I add- that he decided to _put you back_ into the device that _caused_ your insanity?"

Desmond blinked up at her, nonplussed. "Um… yeah?"

Aela ripped herself away from the table, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, snarling loudly. Her hands flexed and clenched, fingers grasping at empty air like she was prepared to grab the first person she saw and rip their fucking throat out. Desmond was humbled, and, quite frankly, also terrified.

"Aela?" She didn't appear to hear him. "Aela! Calm down!" She turned to him, eyes flashing pale gold under the flickering candles that surrounded them- was that a trick of the light or something else? Whatever, he didn't have time to think about that right now, there was a snarling destructive warrior woman in front of him and he needed to de-escalate this entire situation.

"Aela, seriously, calm down!" He held out his arms. "Look! I'm _fine_ , I'm _okay_ , I need you to take some deep breaths and find your happy place or whatever because you are _freaking me out_."

Slowly, _glacially_ slowly, her muscles relaxed, her teeth unclenched, and her fists flexed back open. Then, lightning quick, she turned, snarling once again, and punched the wall so hard that everything in the room _rattled_.

"Woah! Woah, woah, woah, calm _down_! Fuck, Aela, why are you so angry?"

She whirled on him, stalking forward with the grace of a predator, and he _somehow_ resisted the urge to back up. Somehow.

"Your father-"

"Isn't worth this!" She opened her mouth, likely to either verbally rip him apart or start in on another lecture, and he cut her off before she could even start. "No, Aela, _listen to me_. My dad? He's the fucking scum of the earth, ok, and I have spent _far_ too long agonizing over him and his shitty life choices to let someone else try a hand at it too. He's a bastard, and he's not fucking _worth it._ "

"Of course it's worth it!" she snapped, and Desmond did actually back up a step out of reflex. Her face softened. "It is worth it," she continued, brushing hair out of her face carelessly, "because it upsets you."

He snorted, very pointedly not reading any deeper behind that statement. "It seems to be upsetting you a whole lot more than me, right now."

She shoved a finger in his face, nearly scratching his nose. "Do not make this about me!" she growled, reaching up and grabbing his ear to yank him down to her level. "Why are you apparently incapable of confronting your feelings without deflecting them to something else?"

"What the hell do you mean?" He winced at the fingernails digging into the sensitive skin of his ear. "I don't-"

But Aela steamrolled right on over him. "You have left your entire world behind for ours, through no decision of your own, and been thrown to the wolves. You are completely out of your depth, in an entirely new place where very little is the same as what you know, and you are scrambling to keep up. You have been used, abused, and discarded by your old world, only to end up in ours and face nearly the same treatment. And still, you insist on putting others before yourself, on accepting every request that comes your way, and spend no energy on taking care of yourself!" She looked him dead in the eyes, face twisted in sympathy and anger- not at him, but _for_ him- and slipped her hand from his ear to cradle his cheek. " _Stop pretending you are fine._ "

And it really was a testament to how long he'd been holding all of this in that he started crying almost immediately.

The first tear slipped out almost without his notice, and the others followed quickly after, rushing down his cheeks that were stained red with helpless anger and embarrassment. Aela said nothing, merely pulled him down and let him bury his face in her shoulder. She held him while he shook silently, softly carding her hand through his hair.

Eventually, his silent crying evolved into full-blown sobbing. He kept trying to pull away, to preserve even a shred of his dignity but Aela remained firmly attached to him. He was practically hyperventilating, desperately trying to get enough air to his lungs, and he felt his fingers dig into the soft leather of Aela's armor without meaning to.

 _Pull away, please pull away, you don't need this, you don't need to do this, I'm_ fine.

 _Don't you see, though? You're not fine. You've never been fine, and that's okay, that's okay._

They stayed that way for a long, long time.


	12. Recovery

It wasn't long after that Aela sat Desmond on her bed and draped him in furs. She carded her fingers through his hair, and if he weren't so cried out and numb he probably would have felt indignant. Instead, he only sat quietly and watched with tired eyes as she threw open the doors to her room and the three people gathered to eavesdrop shouted and flailed and fell on their asses.

God, he was exhausted. He hadn't cried like that in- well, years, probably. He felt like a wrung out towel.

Almost without his notice, he slipped down sideways until he was lying on the bed. He wrapped the blankets of furs tighter around himself, and allowed himself to drift off to the sound of Aela tearing Farkas, Vilkas, and Athis into verbal shreds, and maybe also physicals ones. He fell asleep too quickly to confirm.

#

Kodlak was a man of simple desires. All he could say that he'd ever wished for was good alcohol, sharp weapons, and the respect of his people.

Well, and a cure to his furry burden, but he tended not to admit that out loud.

Regardless, Kodlak enjoyed being a companion. He found satisfaction in aiding the people and guiding his fellow companions to productive and slightly less dangerous outlets, and often it left him feeling like he had adopted a pack of belligerent and unruly children without his say so.

Arguments in Jorrvaskr were not at all uncommon.

Normally Aela had a better handle on her rage than this, though. She wasn't one to bite anyone's head off like what he was currently hearing, despite her gruff personality, unless that person had seriously fucked up. When the first skull sounded as it bounced off the wall, Kodlak decided it was best if he investigated and see if he couldn't soothe whatever nerves had been pinched.

"What's going on here?"

Ah, it was always so gratifying to watch everyone freeze and pretend to act innocent once he walked into a conversation.

"Kodlak," Aela nodded to him, not releasing her grip on Vilkas's hair or her foot from Athis's shoulders. Farkas sat against the wall, whining like a pup and clutching his head. "How nice of you to drop by," she said blandly.

Oh, by the Divines. "Aela, what's going on here?"

As if he'd reminded her of her anger, she growled and halfheartedly banged Vilkas against the wall again. "I was engaged in an important and extremely private discussion with a friend of mine, and they heard things they weren't supposed to."

"But Aelaaaa," Athis's whining was muffled. Having one's face pressed into the floor tended to do that. "We would have found out anyways-"

"THAT DOES NOT MATTER!" She roared, digging her heel into his spine and making him cry out. "Desmond did not choose to tell you at this time, and you disregarded that! If you were to know, it should have been face to face, from Desmond, on his own terms. Not through a crack in a door listening to the private story of a stranger you had no right to hear!"

Kodlak kept his face carefully neutral, though he was inwardly surprised. Aela, as far as he knew, wasn't close enough with anyone outside the companions to evoke a reaction that intense. This merited investigation.

"Who is Desmond?" he asked carefully, because Aela was as vicious as a snow bear with cubs at the most inopportune times, and it looked like this "Desmond" was the cataclysm of this particular episode.

She jerked her head towards her bedroom door. "He is a good friend." She carelessly leaned more weight onto Athis, who wheezed violently and smacked her leg. She did not release him. "He is in my room, resting, if you wish to speak to him."

Kodlak raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Resting? Just what kind of conversation were you having in there, Aela?"

"The emotionally draining kind," she said flatly, tossing Vilkas into his brother and pulling Athis up by his collar. "Now, if you'll excuse me Kodlak," she called over her shoulder, stalking towards an empty room, "Athis and I need to have a chat, since this was his idea."

Athis's eyes widened in horror. "No no no nononononononono, Kodlak don't let her-" He was cut off by the door slamming in his face, and so Kodlak never found out what he was supposed to keep Aela from doing. Pity. It sounded rather urgent.

He turned back to Farkas and Vilkas, who were resting side by side against the wall. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, if you boys have half the sense you were raised with you'd get out of here before she gets done with Athis and decides to start in on you two." They nodded rapidly, practically climbing over each other to get out of the hallway. "Also," he said flatly, halting them in their tracks, "don't let me catch you eavesdropping again, you hear me? You are both grown men and respected members of the Companions. Act like it."

"Yes, Kodlak," they murmured, thoroughly chastised. Then, with a few grunts and the sounds of hasty footsteps, they were gone. Kodlak paused a moment and then turned back to the door to Aela's room. He pushed them open quietly.

Truth be told, he'd fully expected to walk into the aftermath of a brief and violent(and consensual, because Aela was all about consent) sexual encounter. He knew Aela preferred women, but she had brought home a few male lovers in the past. But, not only was the man on Aela's bed asleep, he had all his clothes on. He also appeared to be… tucked in. Like a child. So, definitely no sex. Kodlak moved closer, and nearly stopped in his tracks once he caught a glimpse of the man's face.

He was adorable.

Kodlak realized, with a sudden clarity, why his mother had always wanted grandchildren.

Divines he was- just- his face! And the fluffy hair and the rosy cheeks and the- the- ugh. Kodlak needed to draw up some adoption papers immediately.

Gently, almost reverently, he ruffled Desmond's hair, and he had to keep himself from literally howling as the kid sat up and tiredly rubbed at his eyes. God, if his mother could see him now, after that speech he made as a teenager about how he would only ever adhere the manly and "Nord appropriate" stereotype, she'd laugh in his face and then deliver a solid kick to his rear for not having the kid as part of the family already.

He physically shook off a cringe. By Talos, what had his 15 year old self been thinking?

Well, that didn't matter. What mattered was that his new unofficial son was lost and emotionally exhausted, and probably hadn't eaten anything all day. That needed to be changed.

Desmond yawned. " _Qu'est-ce qui se passe?_ "

Kodlak paused, unsure. Desmond seemed to realize that he was not speaking the correct language, and spit out a few different words that held no meaning to the Harbinger before he finally settled on a language Kodlak could understand.

Desmond scratched the back of his head and stifled a yawn, looking a bit embarrassed. "What's up?"

"Have you eaten today, son?" Kodlak asked quietly, setting a comforting hand on Desmond's shoulder and smiling slightly when the younger man leaned into it, seemingly without thinking. Desmond just shook his head, trying and failing not to yawn again and show how tired he was. Kodlak gently pulled him up by his arm. "Come on, let's get some food into you."

"Okay," Desmond sighed. Kodlak caught the longing look Desmond shot at the furs on the bed.

"You can bring a blanket with you," he laughed. "I know I'm waking you up from your nap, son, and I'm sorry about that, but it's not good to sleep on an empty stomach. Especially not after an emotionally exhausting conversation like Aela says you had."

He felt, rather than saw, the younger man tense. "Did she, uh, tell you what that conversation was about, or…?"

Kodlak shook his head. "No, I only know that it happened. Unlike some of the Companions around here, I was raised with manners."

Desmond chuckled softly, an utterly charming sound. "Well, I'm glad."

Kodlak smiled. "Come, let's get you some food, and then you can get back to your rest." He was glad that Desmond seemed too tired to puzzle out the meaning of his words and infer that his chat with Aela had indeed been listened to. The boy didn't need that kind of stress right now.

Kodlak guided Desmond up the stairs and into a seat at the table, right next to his. He subtly helped the boy get settled, because if he remembered anything about being Desmond's age, it was that he got irritated easily by overt coddling when others were around. He assumed Desmond was the same. He set a bowl of venison stew in front of Desmond, settling next to him with his own bowl, and a plate of bread and cheese between them.

"So," Kodlak said, swallowing a spoonful of warm stew, "if you don't mind me asking, what were you and Aela speaking about? Do you feel comfortable sharing any of it or not? It's perfectly alright to say no," he added, when he saw Desmond visibly waffling between giving away information and maintaining his privacy. "We are, after all, basically strangers."

Desmond looked relieved. "Yeah, I mean, I don't even know your name. Mine's Desmond, by the way, I don't know if Aela told you that already."

"My name is Kodlak Whitemane," he said. "I'm the Harbinger of the companions."

Desmond paused, a spoonful of stew halfway to his mouth. "That… sounds important. What do you do?"

Kodlak idly fiddled with his spoon. "I provide guidance to the other companions. They refer to me as a sort of unofficial 'leader' even though as companions we have no definite leaders, only senior members."

Desmond shrugged half-heartedly. "I understand wanting an equal hierarchy, but a horse is a horse, no matter the name you give it."

Kodlak laughed. "Yes, that's an excellent way of putting it."

The boy smiled, and it filled Kodlak with parental warmth. "So, Mr. Whitemane-"

Kodlak snorted. "Just Kodlak. I may be old enough to be your grandfather, but that doesn't mean you have to act like it."

"Kodlak, then." Desmond shifted his blanket higher up around himself. "I was wondering, is Aela- I mean is she always that…" He seemed to be fishing for an appropriate word. His eyebrows furrowed together and the corners of his mouth turned down ever so slightly. _Cute._ Kodlak could _feel_ himself throwing out unrepressed pack bonding instincts, but he couldn't give less of a shit. His wolf was howling to Hircine's realm, full of joy and delight at the presence of what it had decided was it's new cub, and Kodlak's feelings weren't exactly dissimilar.

"Overbearing?" he guessed. "Aggressively and inconveniently motherly? Full of unexpressed rage and mood swings? Prone to extreme violence at the drop of a hat and then inclined to behave like she didn't just bash someone's head into a wall?"

Desmond blinked. "I was gonna go with intense, but yeah, those too."

Kodlak nodded, faux-seriously. "Yes, she is."

Desmond sighed dramatically, picking up on Kodlak's joking tone. "Oh, good. I was worried it was just me." His sigh abruptly turned into a yawn, which he tried to hide, to no avail. He dug the heel of his hand into his eye, trying to rub away the heavy, gritty tiredness that had suddenly settled on his eyelids.

Kodlak stood almost immediately, gently pulling Desmond up along with him. "Back to bed with you, I think," he chuckled. He settled a guiding hand between Desmond's shoulder blades, steering him towards the stairs.

"'M not tired," Desmond managed to say through another yawn, making Kodlak smile fondly. _Cubs and their whining,_ he thought, shaking his head. He herded Desmond back into Aela's room, settling him on the bed with only token protests. The younger man kicked off his boots and flopped onto his side without another word, out like a wind snuffed candle. Kodlak tossed another blanket over him.

His wolf, which had been howling at the back of his mind, finally quieted down, content now that it's new cub had been cared for. Kodlak rolled his eyes, but it was a touch more fond than usual. Dumb beast.

His smile slipped off his face when he remembered that he still had to check on Athis and make sure Aela hadn't literally ripped the flesh from his bones.

Why were all his children so violent?


End file.
